Act on terror

Act on terror

It is in China's interest to heed India's concern on Pakistan-based terrorism.
In Beijing for the first round of the reconstituted and upgraded strategic dialogue between India and China, foreign secretary S Jaishankar asserted that New Delhi remained strongly committed to maintaining good bilateral relations. The last 12 months have seen a chill in India-China ties over two major issues ¬ Beijing's persistent blocking of New Delhi's efforts to get Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar proscribed by the UN, and Chinese obstruction to India's membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
There's no denying that much can be achieved if India and China work together. However, Chinese policies have created an impression that Beijing wants to impose its will unilaterally. Even in terms of trade, China's restriction on market access for Indian companies exemplifies a desire for one-way commerce. In order to dispel this perception, both countries must coordinate their action on issues of common concern. And terrorism emanating from Pakistan is a problem for both New Delhi and Beijing. In fact, China would do well to get past its `all weather friend' tag vis-à-vis Pakistan and assess the situation objectively. Not only can Pakistan based terror groups exacerbate the turmoil in China's Xinjiang province, they can also disrupt Beijing's multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Hence, Beijing should use its influence with Islamabad and get the latter to seriously crack down on all terror groups. Similarly, Beijing blocking efforts to ban Masood Azhar at the UN makes no sense. Agreed, in recent days Pakistani authorities have put Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed under house arrest and listed him under an anti-terror act. But this is too little too late ¬ he needs to be prosecuted for 2611.Besides, even after moving against Saeed, Pakistan has been sending out mixed signals. While its defence minister said Saeed is a threat to Pakistan, its army chief General Qamar Bajwa asserted that India is behind the current terrorist upsurge in Pakistan, an entirely home-grown problem thanks to decades of Islamabad's policy of using terror groups as an instrument of state policy.
Islamabad will need to tame the monster ¬ whose worst recent outrage is the suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in Sind province that killed 88 people ¬ that it has reared. Both India and China must pressure Pakistan into adopting this approach. Neither does Pakistan have much to lose in doing so, as the world will applaud and support it.